Posts tagged ‘Five Minute Getaway’

The lights of the kirche gave it a warm glow that radiated down onto the street. The surrounding businesses also had turned on their lights against the growing night.

Hilda stopped at the corner and looked up. Yes. The lights were burning in the second office from the right on the sixth floor. He was there as promised. She looked down at the sidewalk, a dazzle of light reflecting the sky’s deep purple and the warmth of the lights spilling out of doorways and windows.

Then she lifted her head and stiffened her spine for the coming confrontation.

For it would be a confrontation. It must be.

Frederick himself answered the door.

He looked different for his time in prison. There was a sadness around his eyes that had never been there before. Before that drunk driving accident that mangled Hilda’s life and even shook her faith for a while.

Hilda walked in and stood, waiting for him to close the door.

Frederick offered to take her coat.

“That will not be necessary.” She dared not stay long, the way her heart was pounding out of her chest.

He sat down at the chair next to the one she stood by. “Please, have a seat, Hilda.”

“That will not be necessary.” She’d never make it through this if she acted as though he were a friend.

He stood again, embarrassed. Or nervous.

Hilda took a deep breath, whispered a prayer. The moment had come. “You killed Ilsa, you killed my sister.”

His head bowed and his shoulders slumped, giving him the look of an abandoned rag doll. “I know. Your sister begged me to pull over that night, but…I didn’t…I didn’t listen.” He looked up into Hilda’s eyes. “I truly loved Ilsa with all my heart. You should know that.”

“Well, there’s something you should know.”

He waited as a condemned man before his executioner.

The black hate in her heart suddenly threatened to overwhelm her. The silence in the room grew stifling as she struggled to form the words she had to say to fight back the darkness.

Then there was sweet release as she found the words. “Frederick, I forgive you.”

“For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task?” 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 (http://www.blueletterbible.org/Bible.cfm?b=2Cr&c=2&t=NIV#7)